House MD Finale and My Thoughts

/ / review

So, House is over.

Oh, wait … if your name is TROY, better stop reading. I’m about to spoil the crap out of this episode.

Or if you simply don’t want to know what happened, then by all means, read elsewhere. Or … here.

Still here? Great.

Yah, House is over. Not sure what we’re going to do with the other hour of our Monday night. Probably weed, since our yard looks like crap. That’s always fun. Ranks right up there with plucking hair off your upper lip.

Now … way back at the beginning of this final season, I called it: “House will commit suicide.” For those of you who have seen the last show, you know just how close I was to being right! I thought for sure that he’d do himself in. The leg pain, losing Cuddy, his best/only friend having 5  months left to live, avoiding jail … the man was a train wreck. However, the way the show ended was just perfect. House found the ultimate solution to his grandest puzzle.: how do I help support my friend? Committing “suicide” allows him to 1. stay out of jail, b) tool around with Wilson on their motorcycles for the next 5 months or however long Wilson has left, c) in a lot of ways, it frees House to live whatever life he wants from here on out. I especially liked the name badge under the chair trick. “Hi. Still here. Not dead. Just playing. See ya. Or … not.”

I read this funny article on how one person thought the show would end (read #3). While I find it humorous, it would have been almost tragic to end the show like that. I guess. Actually, it wouldn’t have been funny cuz I would have been wrong. THAT would have sucked. As it is, I was only partially wrong.

However, reading that article got me thinking about the “sarcoidosis” inside joke. Not that ANY disease is funny or has an entertaining element, but come on … imagine you’re Hugh Laurie, or Omar Epps, Or Jesse Spencer, or Olivia Wilde, or ANY of the actors who played on the show and had to say, “Well, umm … it could be sarcoidosis …” I’m guessing there’s a bell curve to the number of takes it took to actually say, “sarcoidosis” without breaking into hysterical laughing fits as the number of eps increased  in which it featured as a possible threat.

Sarcoidosis "bell curve"

Well, okay … not so much a bell curve. More like an upright cucumber followed by a large span (read: rest of the life of the show) of “Really? Of the hundreds of thousands of diseases, this has to be our default diagnosis for every single show?” Yah … if I were the cast, I would have boycotted. “Find another disease. I don’t care if it’s tennis elbow, mad cow, proctalgia fugax, witzelsucht, rhinotillexomania, or gynecomastia … come up with something else.”

Well, thanks to the House team for 8 years of awesome. Gonna miss the show, but thankfully it lives on in digital.

March of the Solar Moon

/ / Opinion, rantings

Yes, I’m aware that the post title doesn’t make a whole lot of sense … unless I give you some context.

This Sunday, I’m going to southern Utah to watch the annular solar eclipse in its entirety. Well as “entirety” as it gets in our neck of the woods, since the sun sets just before the eclipse ends (but really, we’re only going to miss about 20 minutes).

For the last week or so, I have woken up and headed out to the car to drive to work. I get up pretty early–between 5 and 6. I’m out the door well before sunrise, generally speaking.  One day early last week, when I was driving in to work a little later than normal, I could see an almost full moon just getting ready to set on the western horizon, while on the eastern horizon, the sun was already threatening to crest the tops of the still-snow-capped mountains.

This morning, I saw the moon directly over head as i left around 5:30. It’s in its waning crescent phase, and it is marching towards its inevitable encounter with the sun this coming Sunday afternoon/early evening.

It struck me that this cyclical phase the moon goes through–the rotation around the earth once every 28 days (for the sake of discussion, anyway) … and this collision course with lunar and solar alignment in just such a locale that I only need to drive 4 or 5 hours … this is why I love science–specifically, astronomy. Today, anyway. I love watching documentaries as a general rule. Anything to further learning. 🙂

But I digress.

This morning, it struck me that I am going to witness an incredible spectacle on Sunday. This is going to be an awesome event! I even rented a high quality lens to make sure i get good pictures. How often does one get to say, “Yah, I saw an annular eclipse today.”?! I’ve read of people whose lives were changed after seeing events like this. The sheer grandeur of the confluence of celestial bodies in just such a perfect alignment; the awe-inspiring vision that presents itself as the moon blots out 95% of the sun; the day that turns to night, then back to day … all in a matter of minutes. How could one NOT be struck by something like that?

Then there’s the Venus transit on June 5th. Another incredibly rare event. So rare, in fact, that it happens twice every 110-125 years. Unfortunately, this transit is the last one until December 2117, at which point most anyone alive right now will be dead.

August 21, 2017 will see a full total solar eclipse pass through North America, the center of which passes right through Jackson Hole, Wyoming, southern Idaho … well here–see for yourself. The path cuts through THE ENTIRE CONTINENTAL USA. I can’t wait for that one. It’s going to be awesome.

April 8, 2024 will see another total solar eclipse, this time passing over Niagara Falls. Seriously? Can we say “photo op”?

But for now, my heart is already in southern Utah. Sunday morning cannot get here soon enough. Gonna have to start making a playlist for the trip. Obviously Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon, CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising,” Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” and whatever else I can think of. Spotify to the rescue!

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